


Too Much Gravity

by JayBarou



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-06-03 08:04:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6603217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayBarou/pseuds/JayBarou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony and Loki have not found a way of sleeping a whole restful night together.  Fumbling in bed and leaving was easy, but nightmares, especially each other’s nightmares, are not easy to navigate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Much Gravity

Once again they were awake thanks to their combined nightmares. Sleeping together had not diminished them, and they had walked on tiptoes whenever one happened. They had reached an awkward understanding with enough repetitions of the same scene: One of them was awaken by screams, he shook the other conscious and dodged any possible retaliation in the form of punches or magic; then they kept a weird silence while something like normalcy reclaimed their bedroom. After that they gravitated towards each other, without ever looking into their eyes. Neither slept, but both pretended.

Until one of them –and they would never say who started– broke the silence.

“It was so dark.”

And it seemed to break a dam between them. They started to explain the reason why the nightmare was there in the first place, what event during the day might have brought it to the forefront. They never looked into their eyes when they talked, but it was mildly reassuring.

“The fall…”                                                       “Yinseng never…”                                             “The blue light…”

“Today… The water…”                                    “It was Howard this time…”                          “Too much.”

“I was alone…”                                “There was no exit.”

“I was not myself…I couldn’t…think…”                  “Sometimes Thor shouts and I…”                                                     

“It sounds terrible, but I overhear someone talking in an Arabic dialect and I just…”

Loki still felt guilty when Tony’s nightmares were about his failed invasion, or about falling from windows. His own nightmares sometimes included Tony never making it through the portal or a successful invasion. Loki never mentioned those ones aloud, and Tony never mentioned much about the ones about his reactor. Those nights Tony covered his light with one hand, tapping from time to time, and stared at the dark while Loki combed his hair.

It wasn’t quite comfortable. I didn’t help much. It wasn’t a great solution, but neither had even considered sleeping apart. It wasn’t something they could do anymore.

It was on one of those nights –with Tony looking at the wall, resting against his chest and covering most of his light with a hand– that Tony decided to change the routine. Or, more precisely, he added that one singular nightmare to their routine by talking about it.

“Barton must have told you what he knows about this.” It wasn’t a question and Loki simply let him keep going, as usual. “SHIELD doesn’t know the half of it. They came late, stomping on my life. If they hadn’t conveniently saved Pepper I’d…” Loki used the back of his fingers to play with Tony’s beard. “I don’t even know where to start. I keep finding things further and further buried in my past, sometimes I think it is a plot. Yinsen, he would have lived if I had listened in that party; Maya, if things had been different; and my father and his visions for a brighter future, now fueling… me. Some days…”

Tony reached a stop and Loki wondered if that was everything he was going to say. It was convoluted and he couldn’t understand much of it, but it was more than he had expected. However, now that Tony seemed to have gained the resolution to talk, he didn’t want to let it go.

“I guess I can start with Yinseng. I met him at a party, and I completely ignored him. I had people to do and things to explode. Then fast forward, I built…”

Loki listened attentively; he didn’t give a counter to the monologue. He had come into Tony’s life in the wrong moment; Tony had been trying to decide if he wanted to get rid of the reactor and news of Loki’s return had reached him. He kept the reactor, in case it protected his mind again. It had meant something else for Potts, apparently, and Tony had pushed her away.

Loki didn’t feel guilt about Tony’s life crumbling. The reactor had saved Tony’s life in more than one way, and if Tony had died, Loki… well, Earth wouldn’t have liked it. However, his timing also meant that he hadn’t been there for any of the reactor-related events that lead to those nightmares.

 Loki was very invested in the story, but he only sign was the sudden stop of his fingers on Tony’s skin when the story reached a particularly tense point and the nearly imperceptible hitch in his breath when the Tony in the story was in mortal peril.

Tony noticed, he hadn’t spent long nights in Loki’s arms without getting attuned to the slightest twitches of the other man. He pretended he didn’t notice and kept talking. He didn’t stop at Obadiah. Oh, no, that had been just the beginning of more. He told Loki about his medical issues, the reduced lung capacity, the frailty of the bones surrounding the reactor, the damage to his liver, how the design of a proper casing took him months of work and learning a lot of anatomy and how he partly overcame the problem with the development of bone implants and a kind of artificial tissue that now was used on implants all over the world.

Nobody thanked him for that one, ever.

Anyway, having to tinker with his own body was one of the many roots that fed his nightmares. It had been gore-y and… no, he didn’t have words that could explain what being forced to play with his innards felt like.

It had been all for nothing, because then he discovered that it was poisoning him. So Tony started to recount the tale of Natalie Rushman and Vanko and strawberries and everything that could be even a little relevant. Maybe now that he was talking, he was more afraid of the silence that would follow. And of course, that realization cleared his head of the whole English language.

He could have continued. After all, he hadn’t explained what happened at the Expo, and he had the whole extremis spiel, but the damage was done, and he felt unable to form a single word with his lips. The fingers at his hip stopped. Of course the story hadn’t had a natural ending, Loki was going to want more, but Tony couldn’t talk.

“Wait, but you didn’t need a whole new element, or those green-shakes, or that injection. You only needed a power source for an electromagnet. You could have used a car battery, at least until you could make something better.”

Time held its breath, maybe even Jarvis held his breath. Their nightmares were followed by monologues, not dialogues. There weren’t platitudes or words of comfort. Instead, they chased away bad dreams with tentative caresses and unsure lips. It had been their way since they started to sleep together. Loki didn’t know if words would be welcome.

Tony turned to him and hid his face in the crook of Loki’s elbow. His shoulders started to shake and Loki panicked. It had been a wrong step, he had insulted Tony, he had made him cry… or had he? A soft sinker told him how wrong he was. He moved a little, but Tony held him where he was.

“It didn’t ever cross my mind.” Tony’s voice was muffled by sheets and skin, but Loki could hear him clearly. “I was so worried. My father’s miniaturized reactor was poisoning me. I was going to die letting him down for the last time. The reactor _had_ to work, and I was so focused…” Tony peeked with one eye straight at Loki. “Where were you all my life to tell me the obvious things like if I had tried to turn it off and on again?”

Loki let the start of a smile show.

“And you call _me_ the drama queen. You nearly died because you had to be noble, hide your sickness and brood about how unfair your life is.”

“I had just come out of months playing both Frankenstein and the Creature. “ Tony answered mock-offended.

“I carried my entrails through the Vastness of Svartalfheim–” Loki countered fire-fast, but Tony didn’t let him finish, head now out of its nest of shame.

“And ascended to drama King of everything, I know. One of your brilliant spur-of-the-moment plans.” Tony’s hair was a mess and Loki couldn’t help but grin despite the insult.

“My plans are nothing but perfect.”

“You are a slow thinker, darling, deal with it.” Tony turned just so he could cross his arms playfully.

“Blasphemy! My tricks are splendid! Remember the tower and the scaling machine?” That one had probably given Fury an aneurism.

“You had months to prepare that, but insta-plans? Not your forte.”

“Say one time–”

“Bifrost, pointed at Jotunheim.”

“Low blow, Stark.”

“I’ve had a good teacher.” Tony let a second pass. “Past-me must be so proud.”

They kept bickering for almost an hour, but after that, the silence that fell was restful and promised a few hours of actual, relaxed sleep. It wasn’t much different from the previous times, but their faces weren’t contorted in worry.

Their nightmares were ominous fragments from the past that could reach out and taint their future at any given point. Until that moment, they had treated their dreams with silence and respect, but for two people like them, maybe it was appropriate that what really soothed their fears was mocking them with lighthearted comments. They would keep trying; their whole relationship was a huge pile of error and trial. They would get better or live trying.


End file.
